Parsad

Terrific notes by Peter Boodell of Boodell & Co. Thanks to David for sending it! Cheers! Peter_Boodell_-_Berkshire_Hathaway_Annual_Meeting_May_3_2014.pdf

What the heck does that mean? I think he is using that as a proxy for how popular the guy is with the ladies which is another proxy for his net worth I must be getting old! Thanks for the explanation. Cheers!

What the heck does that mean?

One of Indirectinvestor's friends who I met a few years back did the same thing during the dot-com era. Daytraded his way to $150M! At one point, he was accounting for several percentage points of total daily volume traded on many of the big dot-com stocks. No idea what he is doing now. Cheers!

Nice article Norm! And yes, Francis is a class-act and fantastic person. Cheers!

Far from it. Obviously he's not his father...who is? But he's been on a number of boards, runs his own farming business, is a published author and photographer, and has met all of his father's friends over the years...not to mention probably learned a thing or two. For people who think Berkshire will be the same after Buffett, it just can't be. The primary capital allocator will be gone, and they will rationally decide whether to reinvest all of the cash flow or distribute it in some fashion. By distributing it, it simply reduces the number of mistakes that can happen. Cheers!

+1! So if he read 500 pages a day, with a plum up his bum, would everyone here attempt that too? ;D Build your circle your own way folks. It's not how big the circle is or how fast you get there, but that you stay within it and make good bets! Cheers!

Nick's correct here. They mean that they help employ or staff 65,000 people in various businesses and industries. The older figure on their corporate website says that, but was at 50,000 people staffed. I think Prem just didn't phrase it adequately, and so it sounds a little like they have 65,000 actual employees working for them. Cheers!

Hey Parsad, I got a feeling we would never fully agree on this subject. Hempton seems eccentric but I would never say he is a dick. If I genuinely believe someone is holding a stock I believe has accounting gimmicks and could go to zero -- I hope I would do exactly what Hempton did. I think it's the right thing to do. Definitely wouldn't consider Hank Greenberg or Jim Chanos "retards". They both have a long history of uncovering frauds and warning investors about bubble'ish stocks. I know you know this. The foreign subsidiaries (Fairfax Gibraltar, nSpre Re in Ireland) and NMS Cayman transaction + all the characters involved make it a fascinating story. So you feel comfortable with an analyst calling up large institutional shareholders and smaller private shareholders and trying to persuade them into selling their stock in a company without any proof? And you are ok with this when you know that analysts like John Gwynn were also releasing their reports early, and a group of journalists were colluding in writing stories about Fairfax at specific points of time when information was going to be released? Even when one of these journalists, Herb Greenberg, is on the record that he had never read a Fairfax quarterly or annual report? This is ok with you? I find that people have short-term memory as long as people make them money or provide any other useful analysis. Make me a buck or save me a buck and I'll forget your sins! Cheers!

He's a dick! He would actually call shareholders and try to convince them Fairfax was going to fail. Why would any analyst do that? When you discuss Wall Street behavior and how things like "The Wolf of Wall Street" occur, it is because you have unethical conduct that occurs beyond what would be considered within the duties and job description of specific occupations. These guys took way too much upon themselves and the lines they were willing to traverse to prove they were correct were scary and absurd. Combined with the zeal of certain Wall Street's more famous retards...Herb Greenberg and Jim Chanos...you had a very dangerous mix of slander and libel targeting a specific stock. My personal opinion is that there were participants in the short attack that were fortunate to have escaped incrimination, unlike their insider trading colleagues who were hunted down in the last couple of years. How Stevie Cohen was taken down, and not these dipshits, I have no idea. All I can say is that the government went after the biggest fish, even though many smaller fish deserved to be gutted and fried as well! Cheers!

This post defeats the purpose of having individual book reviews...it goes on the "General Discussion" area! Cheers!

Most of the Berkshire passes are gone on eBay, but there are about 10 left for those who need one quick: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Berkshire-Hathaway-Inc-2014-Shareholders-Meeting-/181363951856?pt=US_Tickets_all_in_one&hash=item2a3a2248f0 Thanks to Shai for the link! Cheers!

Wow! No wonder you had to retire. You and your wife don't have time to do anything else except chauffeur the kids around. The oldest one should be driving in a year and can take the siblings around sometimes. Cheers!

Alan is married and has two teenage kids. So all he has to look forward to are these photographs with the Keg girls! ;D Gio's tall...not 7' tall, but probably 6'3 or so. Gio, what is the exact number? Cheers!

Ajcinc took a few pictures from MPIC Fund's Annual General Meeting. Thanks Alan! Cheers!

Thanks to Andrew Berger & Dave Polonitza of AB Value Management LLC, for their donation of this year's photographer! Much appreciated! If are looking for a good, reasonably-priced photographer, give Tatiana a call: http://www.tatianafomichovphotography.com/

Some terrific pictures from the AGM, including Alnesh and I manning a booth! Cheers!

The answer to all those questions is either "none/neither of them" or "the first Darrin" That's incorrect. A Coke is definitely better than a Pepsi! Hands down. I do agree about "the first Darrin." Cheers!

I wonder if they would have let me buy a bottle? If so, I should have done that! Cheers!

No, no...don't worry about that at all. I consider that a donation from my part! But it is also a reason to combine the pre-dinner event with the actual dinner. Cheers!

Here is Bob's presentation from our dinner that unfortunately was not available that evening. Cheers! Robotti_Presentation_-_2014_Fairfax_Financial_Shareholders_Dinner.pdf

Hi Folks, I'm pretty much recovered from the flu now, so I thought I would finally give a synopsis of this year's events. It was quite a stellar week (or 3 days essentially) and all I heard were rave reviews from everyone on virtually all of the events. The week started with "The Ben Graham Dinner" hosted by Norm on Monday night at Joe Badali's. We had about 50-55 people or so attend, and Fairfax was generous enough to send a bunch of gift bags and gift cards ahead of time for all of the attendees, so that they had an extra couple of days to use them. Everyone finally met Gio...the man everyone was waiting to meet in person! All I kept being asked during the various events is "Where is Gio? Which one is he?" Sorry they were all boardmembers and guys Gio...we'll get you a couple of nice ladies next year! Dr. George Athanssakos' Ivey Value Investing Conference on Tuesday morning was a big hit this year. A lot of people told me the speakers were great this year, especially Wilbur Ross! From what I hear, Ivey won the stock-picking contest the day before as well! Norm's Pre-Dinner Gathering was quite packed again in the York Station Bar. This year, Francis surprised the attendees with Brian Bradstreet and Mohnish Pabrai. Although Mohnish had to leave shortly thereafter for his daily nap! The man has a routine...don't fu*k it up! ;D The attendees unfortunately did not spend the minimum $500 at the bar, so unfortunately I was stuck with a $250 bill at the end. We are going to open up the Fairfax Financial Shareholder's Dinner from 3pm on next year, so the Pre-Dinner Gathering will actually end up being in the same room as the Dinner from 3-6pm and the dinner from 6pm on. That way, we'll have plenty of space plus the cash bar over there will easily meet its quota for the hotel. The 2014 Fairfax Financial Shareholder's Dinner was a rousing success again! We had about 150 people in attendance, and raised $19,358, with $2,536 coming from Templeton book and Fairfax Brasil soccer jersey sales at the Fairfax AGM. Prem told me he is meeting the difference and getting us to $20,000 exactly for Crohn's & Colitis Canada (CCC) in memory of JoAnn! Thanks very much to all of you, including the silent auction donors, Templeton Foundation and Fairfax! We had some very interesting silent auction items this year including two boardmembers winning a bid on a Lunch or Dinner With Bob Robotti of Robotti & Company! We had four terrific speakers this year: - First, Mark Ram, formerly of Northbridge and now a National Director with CCC, had a very emotional and stirring speech about how the disease has affected his family and forced him to do everything he can to find a cure! - Second, we had Craig Graham speak bluntly about his time and efforts as CEO of Rainmaker Entertainment. Some of the best one-liners and observations about business came from Craig's speech. I think the crowd was very taken with Craig...amazing individual! - Then we had Andrew Berger and Dave Polonitza from AB Value Management LLC speak about their holding Mastech...very expansive and detailed. I don't think we had enough time for them! Also would like to thank AB Value Management for donating the photographer for the evening. Very generous and I'll share the pictures on here once ready! - Lastly, we had Bob Robotti speak. He gave a terrific, detailed explanation of what value investing is and how it is applied by him when searching for ideas. Unfortunately, Bob's slideshow had not arrived, but I received a copy and I'll put it on here in a separate post! After a short break, Prem arrived with about 10-12 executives. Going from memory...hopefully I don't miss any...we had Richie Boucher, Paul Rivett, Sam Mitchell, David Aisenstat, Peter Furlan, Madhaven Menon, Anne Stevenston-Yang, Francis Chou, Ramaswamy Athappan and George Chryssikos up on the head table, as well as a number in the back of the house and spread throughout the room! Thanks very much to Fairfax's team for taking the time to attend and answer questions. Prem left after about half an hour. The rest of the team stayed for about another hour and a half. Paul Rivett left around 11:45pm and Francis escaped by midnight this year! Amazing people...love them! My heartfelt thanks to Rea and Courtney from the CCC, who volunteered their time and efforts this year for the dinner. It would not have worked out so well without them! The next day was the main event...The Fairfax Financial Annual General Meeting! Crowds were huge this year...1,255 people in total. The bottom levels were full this year at Roy Thomson Hall and people had to go to the mezzanine level. Lots of booths and terrific takeaways for shareholders. One of the big hits was a personal manicure set from one of the Fairfax companies, as well as plenty of gift cards to Cara Restaurants, The Keg, William Ashley and Sportinglife! Tons of food for shareholders as well, all prepared in front of them by a battalion of Fairfax restaurant company chefs! Prem had a wonderful presentation as usual, and for those that say to ignore the macro...based on the slides shown, just like before the Financial Crisis of 2008...it's so hard to ignore! Unfortunately, I missed the Q&A, as I had to man the Templeton book table. We had some Fairfax Brasil World Cup jerseys that were a huge hit that Fairfax had donated to raise money for CCC...they went like hotcakes! Again, for anyone attending, it was a fantastic AGM with Prem mingling and trying to greet everyone during the cocktail! He would be the perfect Berkshire CEO! MPIC Funds AGM went quite well this year too! We had about 65 people attend and the room was jam-packed. I brought some Russell Breweries t-shirts to hand out, and they disappeared in seconds! I wasn't feeling particularly well, and we turned the meeting more into a Q&A. Very pleased by the attendance and it was a pleasure meeting everyone! Thanks very much for making this such a successful three days of value investing! We've got something very special here and I really enjoy putting it together. Truly my honor and privilege, and I'm glad the events have a three-fold effect...attention to Value Investing and Fairfax...attention to Corner of Berkshire & Fairfax boardmembers...and attention to Crohn's & Colitis Canada! Thanks once again! Sanjeev

TIG has sued the NHL regarding the NHL's concealment of concussion effects on players. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-16/nhl-sued-by-insurer-over-defense-of-concussion-lawsuits-1-.html?cmpid=yhoo

[amazonsearch]The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap[/amazonsearch] I was told that Chapter 6 in Matt Tabibbi's "The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap" is devoted to Fairfax's tough years. Haven't read it yet, but probably highly recommended! Cheers!

Hi TorontoRaptorsFan, I was looking for you all night. Had no idea you arrived until I saw the headphones. Sorry we didn't get a chance to talk. I was walking around all night with a foggy congested head. Absolutely sick as a dog right now, and I'm just happy I made it through another week in Toronto! All the best, Sanjeev